1928 in art

Events

• January 7 – The Tate Gallery, London, is one of the buildings flooded by the 1928 Thames flood.
• January 27 – The Huntington Library is officially opened to the public in San Marino, California. Major art exhibits include a large collection of 18th-century British portraits and a display of French tapestries of the same period.
• March 26 – The China Academy of Art is founded in Hangzhou.
• August – Ben Nicholson and Kit Wood visit St. Ives, Cornwall, and meet the ex-fisherman painter Alfred Wallis.
• October – English artist and designer Eric Gill moves with some of his artistic community from Capel-y-ffin in Wales to 'Pigotts' at Speen, Buckinghamshire, near High Wycombe.
• November 18 – Film debut of Mickey Mouse, designed by Ub Iwerks.
• Clarice Cliff introduces her Crocus pottery decoration.
• Pierre Chareau and colleagues begin construction of the Maison de Verre on the rue Saint-Guillaume in Paris for client Jean Dalsace.
• Charles Haslewood Shannon suffers a fall while hanging a picture which ends his career as an artist.

Awards

• Archibald Prize: John Longstaff – Portrait of Dr Alexander Leeper
• Carnegie Prize – André Derain
• Art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics
• * Painting: Isaac Israëls – Cavalier Rouge
• * Drawing: Jean Jacoby – Rugby
• * Graphic work: William Nicholson – ''An Almanac of Twelve Sports''

Exhibitions

• Alexander Calder's first solo exhibition at the Weyhe Gallery, New York City.
• L'Exposition surréaliste at the Galerie du Sacre du Printemps, Paris.
• December – East London Group exhibits at Whitechapel Gallery.

Works

• Wäinö Aaltonen – bust of Jean Sibelius
• Tarsila do Amaral – Abaporu
• Max Beckmann – The Wendelsveg in Frankfurt am Main
• Pierre Bonnard – Flowers on a Red Carpet
• John Steuart Curry
• * Baptism in Kansas
• * Bathers
• Charles Demuth – I Saw the Figure 5 in Gold
• Edwin Dickinson – The Fossil Hunters
• Otto Dix – Metropolis
• M. C. Escher – Tower of Babel
• Meredith Frampton – '
• George Grosz – Hinterground
• Edward Hopper
• * '
• * Manhattan Bridge Loop
• * '
• Prudence Heward – '
• Frida Kahlo – Dama de Blanco
• André Kertész – The Fork
• Paul Klee – Cat and Bird
• Sir John Lavery – '
• Tamara de Lempicka
• * Andromeda
• * Portrait of Dr. Boucard
• L. S. Lowry
• * A Street Scene
• * Going to the Match
• Eugenie McEvoy – Taxi! Taxi!
• René Magritte
• * The Adulation of Space
• * The Empty Mask
• * The False Mirror
• * The Lovers
• Henri Matisse
• * Odalisque with a Turkish Chair
• * Two Odalisques, One Being Nude, Ornamental Ground and Checkerboard
• Ivan Meštrović – The Bowman and The Spearman
• Joan Miró – Dutch Interiors
• Georgia O'Keeffe
• * '
• * '
• * Oriental Poppies
• Mahmoud Mokhtar – Egypt's Renaissance
• Frederick Roth – Equestrian statue of George Washington (Morristown, New Jersey)
• Frank O. Salisbury – Clarence Winthrop Bowen
• Christian Schad – Two Girlfriends
• Charles Sheeler – '
• Zinaida Serebriakova – Lit By The Sun
• Charles Sims – I Am the Abyss and I Am Light
• John French Sloan – Sixth Avenue Elevated at Third Street
• Joseph Southall – The Botanists
• Alexej von Jawlensky – Abstract Head
• George Fite Waters – Statue of Abraham Lincoln (Portland, Oregon)

Births

January to June

• January 20 – Malang, Filipino artist
• January 31 – Dušan Džamonja, Macedonian sculptor
• March 1 – Jacques Rivette, French filmmaker
• March 3 – Jean Rustin, French painter
• March 18 – Mirka Mora, French-Australian artist and cultural figure
• March 25 – Hans Steinbrenner, German sculptor
• April 25 – Cy Twombly, American abstract artist
• April 28 – Yves Klein, French abstract artist
• May 4 – Brian O'Doherty aka Patrick Ireland, Irish-born art critic and installation artist
• May 14 – Władysław Hasior, Polish sculptor, painter and set designer
• May 30 – Pro Hart, Australian painter
• June 3 – Donald Judd, American sculptor
• June 16 – Pierrette Bloch, French-Swiss painter, textile artist
• June 25
• * Peyo, Belgian comics artist
• * Alex Toth, American comic book artist and cartoonist

July to December

• July 8 – Pat Adams, American painter and printmaker
• July 10 – Bernard Buffet, French painter
• July 14 – Anwar Shemza, Pakistan-born British artist and writer
• July 21 – Anne Harris, Canadian sculptor
• August 6 – Andy Warhol, American artist, director and writer
• August 12 – Charles Blackman, Australian painter and illustrator
• August 15 – Alan Collins, English figurative religious sculptor
• August 22 – Roberto Aizenberg, Argentine painter and sculptor
• August 31 – Jeremy Maas, English art dealer and historian of Victorian painting
• September 9 – Sol LeWitt, American conceptual and minimalist artist
• September 10 - Ward Jackson, American painter
• September 12 – Robert Irwin, American installation artist
• September 13 – Robert Indiana, born Clark, American pop artist
• October 7 – Sohrab Sepehri, Persian poet and painter
• October 12 – Al Held, American Abstract expressionist painter
• October 30 – Michael Andrews, English painter
• November 3 – Osamu Tezuka, Japanese manga artist, animator and film producer
• November 6 – Norman Carlberg, American sculptor
• November 17 – Arman, French-born American artist
• November 27 – Josh Kirby, English commercial artist
• December 2 – Guy Bourdin, French photographer
• December 12 – Helen Frankenthaler, American abstract expressionist painter
• December 13 – Wolfgang Hutter, Austrian painter, lithographer and designer
• December 15 – Friedensreich Hundertwasser, Austrian painter, architect and sculptor
• December 31 – Siné, French cartoonist

Date unknown

• Ben Birillo, American painter and art curator
• Franco the Great, born Frankin Gaskin, Panamanian-born American street artist
• Wally Hedrick, American counterculture artist

Deaths

• January 4 – Hamilton Hamilton, American painter
• January 6 – Adolfo de Carolis, Italian painter, xylographer, illustrator and photographer
• January 8 – Gyula Basch, Hungarian painter
• January 13 – Frederick Arthur Bridgman, American painter
• January 21 – Nikolai Astrup, Norwegian painter
• January 26 – Henrietta Rae, English painter
• January – Alexander Reid, Scottish art dealer
• February 7 – Adolfo de Carolis, Italian painter
• February 12 – Nicolás Guzmán Bustamante, Chilean painter and draftsman
• March 31 – Medardo Rosso, Italian sculptor
• April 3 – Raffaello Romanelli, Italian sculptor
• April 5 – Viktor Oliva, Czech painter and illustrator
• April 13 – Charles Sims, English painter
• May 16 – Frederick Arthur Verner, Canadian landscape painter
• May 21 - George Frampton, English artist
• June 22 – A. B. Frost, American illustrator
• July 10 – John Chambers, English landscape and portrait painter
• July 25 – Jane Sutherland, Australian landscape painter
• August 30 – Franz Stuck, German symbolist /Art Nouveau painter, sculptor, engraver and architect
• September 20 – Ivan Tišov, Croatian painter
• October 24 – Arthur Bowen Davies, American artist
• October 30 – Percy Anderson, English stage designer and painter
• November 15 – Godfred Christensen, Danish painter
• December 1 – Leopold Graf von Kalckreuth, German painter
• December 2 – Robert Reid, American Impressionist painter
• December 10 – Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Scottish architect and designer
• December 15 – Louis Mathieu Verdilhan, French painter
• December 18 – Nils Bergslien, Norwegian illustrator, painter and sculptor